Reason of State, Propaganda, and the Thirty Years War: An Unknown Translation by Thomas Hobbes

Paperback | February 15, 2010

Acclaimed writer and historian Noel Malcolm presents his sensational discovery of a new work by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679): a propaganda pamphlet on behalf of the Habsburg side in the Thirty Years' War, translated by Hobbes from a Latin original. Malcolm's book explores a fascinating episode inseventeenth-century history, illuminating both the practice of early modern propaganda and the theory of "reason of state".

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Acclaimed writer and historian Noel Malcolm presents his sensational discovery of a new work by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679): a propaganda pamphlet on behalf of the Habsburg side in the Thirty Years' War, translated by Hobbes from a Latin original. Malcolm's book explores a fascinating episode inseventeenth-century history, illuminating b...

Noel Malcolm is a General Editor of the Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes. He has been a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Foreign Editor of The Spectator, and political columnist of the Daily Telegraph. He left journalism in 1995 in order to concentrate on
scholarly research and writing. Since then he has...

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Table of Contents

PrefaceA Note on Dates and Transcriptions1. Hobbes's Early Career2. The Translation: Authorship, Date, and Style3. The 'Secretissima instructio' Texts4. The Distribution of the Altera secretissima instructio in England5. Palatine Politics: Cavendish, Mansfield, and Hobbes6. 'Reason of State' and HobbesHobbes's translation of Altera secretissima instructioAltera secretissima instructioList of ManuscriptsBibliography

Editorial Reviews

"This book...offers what good history should: the recovery of the past, in all of its forgotten complexity and detail. In a day when most academic writing achieves only clever hermeneutics, reading Noel Malcolm is a bracing pleasure." --Times Literary Supplement